Cosmic Legos: Black Holes Merge Into Never Before Seen Size by Trinity Mathis
https://earthsky.org/space/observe-black-holes-destroying-stars
Black holes are one of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomenons that occur in our universe. In simple terms, a black hole occurs when a star dies or caves in. It’s gravitational pull becomes so great that it sucks in everything around it (light, other stars, etc.) and nothing can escape.
There are small, stellar blackholes and there are some that are a million times the mass of the Sun that are thought to live in different galaxies. It was believed that there were no in between sizes and that blackholes formed from star collapses couldn’t be greater than 70 times the mass of the Sun. However in May 2019, the Ligo and Virgo Telescopes picked up a gravitational wave that two blackholes crashed into each other- creating the first “medium” sized blackhole 142 times the mass of the Sun. This crash was approximately 7 Billion years ago, but was so far away it has just now been detected. This new discovery leaves scientists wondering what else about Blackholes there is to discover and maybe what they got wrong.
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html
How might this new discovery help scientists learn more about Space?
What aspects of blackholes are interesting to you?
What other parts/phenomenons of space do you find fascinating? Do you believe “other life” out there exists?
This discovery will probably help our understanding of space and what we can learn bout it. Blackholes are very interesting to me especially where they take the mass they absorb or what happens to it. Other space things that interest me is other planets nearby that can sustain life.
ReplyDeleteThanks for presenting! - Tyler Ainsworth
Thank you so much for presenting. I found it very interesting that although we were just able to make this observation, this black hole formed seven billion years ago. This discovery is significant because black holes are very difficult to observe, therefore, any information obtained could change the way that we think of them. I do believe that there is other life, however, it may not be in forms that we currently recognize, and we may never be able to detect it. The size of the universe is so large, that it would be very unlikely that there are no other life forms.
ReplyDeleteCarissa Bersche
I completely agree with you! Our universe is so large, it's going to be virtually impossible to find out every little detail about it- that's what I find so intriguing about Space. I do also think life out there exists, maybe not like "aliens" but some other life forms we've may not have even thought of. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Delete-Trinity Mathis
This is really great! Thank you for sharing this with us, space is really interesting. I've never really been that interested in astronomy, but this has made me reconsider. These black holes are very interesting!
ReplyDelete-ilori T
This was really great, the Universe is really interesting and their is a lot more to learn especially about black holes.
ReplyDelete-Angeline Upchurch
I think this discovery can better help scientists understand the conditions of the universe long long ago as well as learn more about black hole collisions.
ReplyDeleteWhat i find interesting is how long they live, because of hawking radiation black holes are not permanent, but they take extremely massive timescales to evaporate. so long in fact that at a point in the universes long timeline they will eventually be all that is left, instead of the atom it will be black holes that are the building blocks of the universe as it rapidly expands.
I certainly think live is extremely possible, if one in every trillion earth like planet produced a humanoid creature, there could still be thousands of creatures like us if convergent evolution takes its course on other planets, which is entirely possible. Convergent evolution has allowed photosynthesis to arise 40 times independently on our planet alone. - Nathan Clark
What fascinates me most about black holes is the fact that they "suck up" planets and other objects in space but no one knows where the matter in those objects go. I also wonder how the clash of two black holes causes them to combine.
ReplyDelete-Shirin Saha
I think the discoveirng can probalby help us learn more about space and what is does. Thank you so much for presenting this, I found it very interesting!
ReplyDeleteI just find the fact that these black holes merged in general. I think its cool that we see movies revolving around a space or galaxy setting, but to actually hear and read about how big space is really goes to show there is still an infinite amount of things to discover and understand.
ReplyDelete-Raquel Morgens